When Doing PR For Anti-Spam Firm... Don't Spam

netbuzz writes "Rule #1 when doing PR for an antispam vendor: Don't spam. This isn't exactly brain surgery, yet the fellow at a PR agency called Rocket Science managed to violate Rule #1 while attempting to drum up publicity for Singlefin, which provides e-mail, IM and Web filtering services to the likes of Juno and NetZero. He also violated Rules #2 and #3." Given the hundreds of press releases I get in my inbox on a weekly basis, PR folks in general need to learn that lesson regardless of their clients.

Comments

Screw ups

[linvir]

By the looks of things, only 116 actual mails were sent. In fact... the whole thing is actually just a big chain of fuckups.

1. 1. Someone at Rocket Science somehow didn't know who they were meant to email, so they just sent it to all the addresses they could find.
   2. They didn't think to BCC, so all the To: addresses were visible.
   3. Obviously, with a big single mail like this, they couldn't address it properly
   4. They forgot to stroke the ego of the nobody editor of some website
2. Mr. Egomaniac Editor then wrote a very sensationalised blog entry about the incident, incorrectly referring to it as 'spam'.
3. And submitted it to Slashdot
4. Taco accepted the submission

When will someone step up and be the hero in this story?

Re:Screw ups

[wayne]

By the looks of things, only 116 actual mails were sent.

Not quite. It appears that *at least* 116 people were sent the email, quite possibly more since the journalist's name wasn't one of those 116 people.

The most widely accepted definition of spam is "Unsolicited Bulk Email". I'm not sure that this particular email is really unsolicited since it appears to have been sent to a reporter in an area closely related to the subject matter of the PR. Bulk, however, has to be defined as anything over 1. If you put any hard cut off, of, say 100 or 1000 emails, then spammers will simply send 99 or 999 emails.

The *penalties* that ISPs (and others) should place on sending of unsolicited bulk email should take into account the actual volume. This is just like stealing a penny is wrong and still stealing, but you will get into a lot less trouble than if you steal a thousands of dollars.

Re:Perfect Marketing

[ciscoguy01]

I think Network World's complaint is completely overblown. They guy sent 11 messages to various writers at a publication that is completely on-target.
OK, maybe he could have done some research as to whom at that publication might write about their product, but heck, it's completely related to their business.

And 11 messages is completely different than sending out 4.8 million ads for V1agrka.

FWIW, I read about Singlefin.com some time ago, I signed up (free, forever, up to 10 mailboxes) to test it for clients, (but never did).

One thing interesting: On signing up on their site, I clicked submit for my registration, and almost immediately the phone rang. Allan from Singlefin. I have to say they are right on top of their business, and even though I haven't yet tried it I think it's very nice of them offering free service for a small number of mailboxes. The way it works is you redirect your MX to them, they filter the mail and send it on to your mailserver. Pretty nice. If you have the guts to let someone else be your MX, that is.

Re:Hello [RecipientFirstName],

[Anonymous Coward]

The ironing is delicious.

Re:Perfect Marketing

[TubeSteak]

They [sic] guy sent 11 messages to various writers at a publication that is completely on-target.

Yea, you said the same thing on the blog over there.
FTFA:

In this instance, however, the mass mailing was readily apparent to all because the "To:" field of the e-mail was populated by 116 clearly visible names -- our 11 staffers, the three exes, and 102 other journalists.

And if that wasn't enough to convince every targeted scribe that he or she was getting a less-than-exclusive interview opportunity, there was this personalized method of address:

"Hello [RecipientFirstName]:"

So, PR n00b sent this e-mail to every address he could scrape off their website (whether it was related to anti-spamming or not), then couldn't be bothered to properly personalize the vaguely targeted e-mails.

So, aside from the fact that 116 messages were actually sent out, at least some of the people at NWW received unsolicited and unwanted e-mail (aka spam).

I'm not sure why you're making excuses for teh n00blet PR guy, but your reasoning only stands up if someone hasn't actually RTFA.